The present invention relates to a method of designing computer networks.
Currently, the design of computer networks, particularly wide area networks, is a long and complex procedure requiring specialist trained staff. For a complex network, it may take a specialist several weeks to design an appropriate solution for the customer's requirements, and to produce a fully costed recommendation. The customer is often not in a position to give approval until the fully costed recommendation has been received, and if at that stage the customer requests amendments to the design there may be significant delays before the designer can produce a revised proposal. Since each iteration/redesign may take several weeks, it will be understood that the entire process between the initial customer's query and the implementation of the final solution may take some considerable time.
According to the present invention there is provided a method of designing a computer network comprising:
(a) selecting a plurality of site objects, each site object being an object-based computer representation of a corresponding physical site; PA1 (b) defining network traffic demands between at least some of the physical sites; PA1 (c) selecting a service object, said service object being a object-based computer representation of a network service for transmitting data between physical sites, and associating said service object with at least some of the selected site objects; and PA1 (d) calculating from the network traffic demands and the properties of the service object, without simulating operation of the network, a physical connectivity map representative of hardware circuits linking physical sites.